The Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has released the second National
Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals, which presents
exposure information for 116 environmental chemicals that find their
way into the human population through pollution or consumer products,
measured in blood and urine specimens. The report found positive results
for 89 chemicals, including PCBs, dioxins, phthalates, selected organophosphate
pesticides, herbicides, pest repellents and disinfectants in the volunteers
tested.

"This report
is by far the most extensive assessment ever of exposure of the U.S.
population to environmental chemicals," said CDC Director Dr. Julie
Gerberding, "This kind of exposure information is essential, it
helps us to lay the critical groundwork for future research in ensuring
that exposures to chemicals in our environment are not at levels that
affect our health."

The report contains
new data on declines in blood lead levels in children; decreases in
adults' exposure to environmental tobacco smoke, and for the first time,
extensive data on many other chemicals that will help public health
physicians and scientists identify and prevent health problems from
exposure.

Blood and urine
samples were collected from some 2,500 participants, who represent the
U.S. population for the years 1999 and 2000, for each chemical tested
in CDC's National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES)-an
ongoing national health survey of the U.S. population. CDC's Environmental
Health Laboratory developed special analytical methods and measured
the chemicals and their metabolites (breakdown products) in these blood
and urine samples. The CDC states that the report will continue to be
released every two years, expanding the number of chemicals covered.

The Environmental
Working Group (EWG), in partnership with Mt. Sinai School of Community
Medicine and Commonweal released a similar study, Body Burden: The Pollution
In People, late last week. Published in the peer-reviewed journal Public
Health Reports, the study results offer an up-close and personal look
at nine individuals whose bodies were tested for 210 chemicals - the
largest suite of industrial chemicals ever surveyed.

The Body Burden
study found:
-- Subjects contained an average of 91 compounds, most of which did
not exist 75 years ago.
-- In total, the nine subjects carried 76 chemicals linked to cancer.
-- Participants had a total of 48 PCBs, which were banned in the U.S.
in 1976 but are used in other countries and persist in the environment
for decades.

"To the extent
that today's CDC report on human exposure to toxic chemicals brings
us good news, it is because government took action and regulated harmful
substances such as PCBs, DDT and lead in paint and gasoline," said
Jane Houlihan, EWG vice president for research. "Decades after
they were banned, though, PCBs are still found in the human body, and
more than two percent of all children continue to carry unsafe levels
of lead in their bodies."

"The CDC's
work parallels our own findings. Given the range of health effects linked
to the chemicals for which we tested, we hope that research will eventually
precede chemical use in consumer products, and that testing will inform
decision makers and lead to better protection of public health,"
said Houlihan.

In response to the
CDC's findings, Jay Vroom, president of CropLife America, which represents
pesticide manufacturers, told the Washington Post, "I certainly
do empathize with people with disease. But the thing we have to keep
reminding the American public is that every one of those compounds found
in blood and urine resulted from commercial products that benefited
society . . . and nothing is risk-free."